Is Qadhafi Looking for an Exit Strategy?

NBC News is saying cautiously that Qadhafi may be preparing to flee Libya; citing some similar reports in the Arab world, Juan Cole remarks:

This report is plausible if only because Qaddafi’s performance on Sunday, in which he released a jumbled and mostly inaudible speech to state media for broadcast, raised questions as to whether he is all there.

Despite my snarky tendency to say, "how does that differ from any other Qadhafi speech in recent months?," these reports may be real this time, but they may also be deliberate disinformation, rebel propaganda, wishful thinking, or fantasy. An incoherent Qadhafi speech is hardly new. Remember the umbrella?

For the sake of his own people and the city of Tripoli, I hope it's true. But experience tells me (actually, fairly screams at me), that the opera isn't over till the strange colonel scrams.